Redondo Beach Main Library
Redondo Beach Main Library was dedicated in Veterans Park on July 2, 1930. It was designed by Lovell Bearse Pemberton in the popular Spanish Colonial Revival style with some notable Dutch Colonial features. Veterans Park is a unique setting for a public library in Southern California with its 5 acres of open space and variety of plant life, most notably the Moreton Bay fig tree planted about 1890. By 1991, the library had become inadequate to meet the city’s needs. Nor did it comply with state accessibility and earthquake safety standards. A timely state grant allowed the city to close it and construct a new, larger library elsewhere. The building reopened in 1996 as the Veterans Park Community Center, an events space, after seismic retrofitting and restoration was completed. The library is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Redondo Beach, Los Angeles County
Photographer: Andrew Schmidt